Tag Archives: food

Sitting Here…..

18 Sunday Oct 2020

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…..thinking about eating. I do this a lot. Food is my drug of choice. Flavors and taste, aroma, the act of chewing, masticating a cube of, say, stew meat as the tastes of the spices cross my palette. Then the willing submission of a banana, when the salivary amylases make quick work of Mother Nature’s phallus of sugar.

….thinking about my sexual need. Longing to have my prick, teased and pulled, rubbed and fondled, hardened by an all-enveloping mouth, then thrust into a wet and eager cunt.

….wondering when my wife will come home, to give her narrative of labour in the Big Red Store. She will recount the sale of disinfectant wipes and Tide© Pods.

An aside: Did you know that women once made a vaginal douche from Lysol©!? In my youth, there was a drawing of a woman in a nurse’s cap, sharing the, uh, “recipe” on a panel of the carton. I didn’t know about douching given my anatomical limitation. Still. My skin is crawling.

Another aside: The poet Vachel Lindsay committed suicide by drinking a bottle of lye. (Drano©)

… waiting for trains to pass. The Virtual Railfan microphone picks up ambient music. There is someone who likes 70’s “soft rock” music or whatever you call the musical idiom where Tony Orlando & Dawn are classified. People are walking about crossing the tracks, until the next train passes. The freight trains have hauled intermodal freight, tanker cars, bulk chemicals, and refuse destined for a landfill. The Amtrak trains carry people, all masked and socially distanced. Most likely they aren’t thinking about Lysol© douches.

This is my Sunday, so far.

Letting Them Roll

10 Friday Jul 2020

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The thoughts in head are many, and each thought I like to think is a cluster of neurons, sparking like steel on flint.

Trains. I am watching Ashland, then Fort Madison, then Ashland, then La Plata, only because I can. A train, #90, will pass through Ashland, two hours late. Then I will watch #03 The Southwest Chief, bound for Los Angeles, cross the Mississippi and pass along the River at Ft Madison, a remarkable site. I will watch the night life in Ashland then flip to La Plata, for the last look at #3.

Dinner was Stouffer’s Mac & Cheese, a tuna sandwich and some store-bought banana pudding. That was for J.

I have the usual aches and pains I always seem to have.  I have laundry dried, ready to sort and fold.

Summer in Virginia is one 90° F (32°C) day after another. I know. Those of you in India or Australia (6 months from now) must find my complaint amusing. 

I’m glad to see live cricket back, even in an empty stadium. The England vs West Indies Test is interesting. I think the Westies came to play. And Stokes can’t win it by himself for England.

Sexual thoughts are always floating in and out of my head. I could interrupt this rather juvenile game of trainspotting, go upstairs, hang out with my wife and seek to pull her knickers down. She would appreciate the attention even if my hands stay away from her waistband.

Later.

Daylight Fritatta

04 Wednesday Mar 2020

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https://cmx.weightwatchers.com/nui/explore/details2/MEMBERRECIPE:5e600552f73410001e92e891?shared=true

I suppose in a perfect world one would see a picture of this dish, straight from the oven all golden brown. But I was hungry, sliced and ate some, before it dawned on me that a picture would be nice.

I basically melted butter in a cast iron pan over medium heat, lined the bottom with a sliced Idaho baking potato. Then I added sliced mushrooms, diced Andouille sausage, an abundance of cheese, and a mixture of 8 eggs and a quarter cup heavy cream.i topped( not that kind of Top!)with yet more cheese, and baked in a 425°F (219°C) oven for about 20-25 minutes to the eggs are firm and the top is golden brown.

I wanted to see if I could fix this fritatta recipe from memory. I can! This is wonderful paired with fresh fruit and warm croissants for a decadent brunch, not that any of you, dear readers, are in any way decadent. (If you are, I’m insanely envious!)

The title is an allusion to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Kinda rhymes, ya know.

3250 Meters Swimming

22 Saturday Apr 2017

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Uh, fascinating. Really? I had last done 2+ miles four weeks ago. It feels great, that sweet exercise high that beats the pants off dope or booze.

I was busy trying to talk myself out of working out today or taking it easy.  But once in the water and moving, all the negative self-talk disappeared.  I actually felt my mind relax, focusing on the laps.

Last week I swam 10,000 meters and to repeat last week’s totals, I needed the 3250 meter distance today. And it really wasn’t hard. I finished, actually lost count of the laps swum. 3250 Meters is 65 laps in a 25-meter pool or 130 lengths. Putting my brain on auto-pilot and just being mindful of my surgical sites (lumbar spine and right shoulder) was my emphasis.

Mrs CorC? and I went to one of our favorite unpretentious restaurants, with good entrees, costing not too much.  I had a blackened rockfish Caesar salad. She had crabcake sliders with sweet potato waffle fries. 

Richmond is a restaurant town. There are lots of start-ups with new concepts. I can tell you that Bruce Springsteen goes to Mama Zu’s on Oregon Hill when he is in town. It’s owned by a buddy of his.

Now FIOS is bringing me a baseball game, Washington Nationals at the Mets. Good game in extra innings. I am at the point where I don’t care who wins. I just want it to be over. My son mentioned to me tonight that the real value of sport is that it is inconsequential. True that.

Football, Amtrak, Walking. A Hodge-Podge

06 Monday Feb 2017

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So here it is Monday.  I did watch part of Super Bowl LI yesterday, but I had better things to do so I turned it off. Then I found out the Patriots won in overtime after trailing 28-3 at one point. Quite frankly I was not surprised.  I am just glad football is over and done with for another few months. Pro football season is like sitting down to a long meal with many courses. Then, when dessert comes (in this case, the Super Bowl), I just can’t eat (or watch) any more.

My good friend JK texted me that he found out he could go to Montreal from Richmond on Amtrak for $84, one way. That is if he books now for a June 30 departure.  Sounds like a deal.  Mrs CorC? and I might take that trip.  The only fly in that ointment is a nearly seven hour layover in New York between trains.  That is if one arrives in New York at 1:40 AM and departs for Montreal at 8:15 AM.  Penn Station just isn’t that interesting.  I would have to plan on more time in New York.

JK’s intention is to spend more time in Canada, perhaps going to Quebec City and Toronto at the very least.  Canada has to be cooler than Virginia in the Summer, temperature-wise.  For ambiance, Canada must be way cooler than Virginia. Plus there is the access to Cuban cigars.  I understand Montreal is a restaurant paradise.

Mass yesterday was rather somber, with the passing of my friend Mike M on everyone’s mind. The funeral isn’t until this Friday.  I don’t know why.

I have resumed my walking in earnest.  I did not realize how much I missed it. I like being connected to the World when I walk.  Swimming is great and I groove on the isolation when I swim.  Swimming lends itself to contemplation

I did some cooking last night, grilled salmon and steamed asparagus. No bread, rice , potatoes or pasta. I’m going for some major starch reduction here. I had fruit for dessert.

More exercise. Better dietary choices. This mindfulness might stick this time.

The Present

14 Wednesday Dec 2016

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“Each new day is a gift. That’s why they call it The Present.”  So states a bit of 12-Step folk wisdom that is annoyingly accurate.

It’s been kind of painful around here, physical pain. I have some back pain that will not seem to abate. A trip to the orthopedic surgeon revealed no changes at the surgical site. Ergo, what I am experiencing is muscle pain.  That’s nice.  I guess.  So I’m back to swimming and walking and doing all the stuff I normally do, with no expectation that the pain is going to go away. Fair enough. As long as I know nothing is getting worse, I can live with the pain.

We don’t do any decorating for Christmas.  Being married to a person who has no commitment to organizing or cleaning means that the clutter  is the Decor.  Throwing a marriage away for slovenliness of the dwelling seems like a crappy reason to walk though.

Cooking is the general activity  for me around here. I fix dinner every night and groove on being a House Husband.  I did turnips Monday, for the first time in eons. I just peeled them, cut them up, boiled and mashed them with some dill weed and poppy seed.  Yummy.  I made salmon cakes with canned red salmon,  the kind they call “Sockeye”. I just added cracker meal, celery, dill weed and an egg and formed them in patties.  I fried them in my Scanpan nonstick skillet until golden brown.  The pan requires no added fat and they browned beautifully  Again Yummy.

I had a cooked sweet potato in the fridge and resolved to make a sweet potato pie with a Graham cracker crust.  Pulling out the trusty Betty Crocker Cookbook, going to page 331 were the directions. Simple and delicious.  I mean that.

I shared all this bounty with my stepmother.  That was the most satisfying aspect of the whole experience.

.

Penance and $2.04

19 Saturday Nov 2016

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Yesterday was Friday. As a Penance, we refrain from eating meat. Penance involves an act which seeks to turn our thoughts and lives toward God.  It is a challenge,  but not so much for finding meatless alternatives.  The challenge lies in choosing to not eat meat as a Penance in the first place.  Vatican II said you could eat meat, right?  Yes, it did, but one is obligated to choose another Penance as a substitute.  Penance, to most people, Catholic or not, is a foreign concept. If one cynically reduces religious observance and the devout life into some sort of cosmic and existential board game , replete with rewards and penalties, it is merely an absurd gesture among many absurd gestures. I see it as something more; leave it at that for now.

Having set the context, the admonition from Mrs CorC? yesterday morning was “Don’t go out and spend money for food I might not want to eat when I get home from work.” Good point.  What to fix then?  I do a quick check of items on hand,and decide on a mushroom and cheddar quiche with fried apples on the side. All that’s missing are mushrooms.

After a noon AA meeting and a meandering drive, debating whether to go to the library or not, I head to the store, then home. I see a package of fresh mushrooms for $1.99.  Mustering all the power of self-control a recovering alcoholic can possess, I pay for them, ignoring all else, especially the Thrift Bakery items. Total for trip is $2.04, with tax.

Upon arriving home, I get out the butter, lard and flour and prepare a pate’ brissee,  from The Joy of Cooking. Making the dough went quite well and I was recollecting a wonderful exchange with another blogger I had about this recipe a few months ago.  It needs to rest in the fridge for at least two hours, so I take this time to go for a four mile power walk around the neighborhood.

The walk went well. The shower felt great. I await Mrs CorC?’s return and finishing the meal prep.  I read from Sometimes She Lets Me, (Cleis Press, Tristan Taormino, Editor)  a collection of lesbian erotica.   Lesbian erotic writing is plain old good writing and not an insult to the intelligence, unlike much other erotic writing.  Upon arrival, she is tired and not completely unplugged from the work day. I leave her to chill and wait for her word to start supper.

Assembling the quiche was easy and fun. I made another major dent in the half gallon of milk I bought the other day, used up the shredded cheddar opened a couple of weeks ago, and got to use the white pepper I deemed an extravagance when I bought it.  The fried apples kind of morphed from rings to apple sauce. I think the Cortland apples  I used don’t cook well for that purpose, but they tasted great. Who cares, right?

My old friend back pain was there through most of yesterday.  But Life is good.

Coming Back

18 Tuesday Oct 2016

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I’m good for only so much despair, before the fun opportunities present themselves and prevail.

The return from the brink began yesterday. I looked in the fridge and said to my self, “Self, we’re fixing dinner!” I got out all the stuff I was planning on using, the onion, garlic, tomato, mushrooms, tuna steak, and left over linguine. I started saute’-ing like a mad man. First the onion and garlic,  a carrot, a tomato, tbyme, basil, and any other herb that struck my fancy. I cut the tuna steak in chunks, added that. After a while the mushrooms entered the skillet, then the cooked linguini. After some simmering, I added a jar of marinated and quartered artichoke hearts, marinade and all. 

Meanwhile, the crab cake, I purchased for Mrs CorC? went in the oven. She loves crab. Alas, I am allergic to it. Her treat. I enjoy watching her eat it.  Finally, the asparagus I purchased were prepped and steamed. She came home to dinner ready to eat. For dessert there was a slice of chocolate babka with mint chocolate chip ice cream for her, a dish of butter pecan ice cream for me.

It gets better. Today I got a swim in. Aware as I am of a tender shoulder, I did a mere 1700 meters. After the swim, a shower with sandalwood soap and a shave. The sandalwood soap takes away the mundane dimension of the YMCA’s burgeoning population of middle-aged fat guys and senior citizen semi-cripples (myself included).  

Funny how very little, simple things can rejuvenate my sense of vitality.

Cousins, Part One.

09 Friday Sep 2016

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They were born on 21 August ten years apart, he in 1949, she in 1959. We’ll call him Leroy, her Annette. Daddy’s brother, Uncle Jim, married their mother Ruby all of sudden.  One week, he was single, living with my grandparents, the next week he was married. He was in his early thirties, a WW II veteran, a CPA.  Ruby, they said, was a widow with a child, Leroy.  That is what we were told. Being children, not investigative reporters, that was a perfectly good explanation.  I remember playing at their house in Highland Park, a North Richmond neighborhood.  Then they moved to Lakeside, in a house near my grandparents with a gate allowing passage between the two houses.

Uncle Jim was hard of hearing. He was in the Navy during The War.  My mother told me he was based in Australia. He was a sonar man.  That was all I knew of his war service until my brother told me he was awarded the Purple Heart when he burned himself with his soldering iron while his submarine was being depth-charged.  It is fairly easy to conclude his hearing loss was attributable, in part,  to the depth-charging.   Imagine, for a while, being in a long steel cylinder, under 60+ feet of water, and people on the surface are dropping explosives on or near that cylinder with the intention of killing you..  Do you think you might be a little crazy after that experience?

So, all of a sudden Bachelor Uncle marries Aunt Ruby and adopts Leroy.  They live near Pop, Grandma and my Aunt Lois, who still lives with her parents.  We visit my grandparents nearly every week.  So we see them a lot. Sometime after 1957, they get a dog, which they name Sputnik, after the Russian satellite.  Leroy likes Elvis and The Mickey Mouse Club. Life rolls along, and they next thing we know Aunt Ruby has a baby. Everybody is surprised. I mean she had a weight problem, but hiding, not talking about a pregnancy with a family that’s pretty damn close is weird. We children were hip to the whole Women Having Babies And Being Mothers Thing. Why they would hide it from us because of some sexual inhibition wasn’t an issue.  I remember seeing my new cousin at the hospital and learning they named her Annette at the urging of Leroy.  To you youngsters out there, Annette Funicello was one of the Mouseketeers on  The Mickey Mouse Club. In the prepubescent world of 1950’s sexuality, she was the hot one to the boys.

We keep seeing our grandparents, aunts, uncle, cousins. We now notice that Annette has a weight problem just like Aunt Ruby and Uncle Jim.  We start to call them The Tank Family.  Cooking  was Aunt Ruby’s passion.  She was good at it and she expected that you eat! Having plenty of food was an obsession of Depression survivors of my parents generation. Annette’s problem morphed into obesity.

Our nuclear family moves in our own specific areas of interest. We see the Tank Family less and less frequently. They move to a subdivision called West End Manor into a typical tri-level. Uncle Jim gets active in the American Legion; Aunt Ruby participates in the Auxiliary. Leroy graduates from high school, gets a job at the Safeway. Daddy gets him in the Marine Reserve and away from service in Vietnam.  Leroy marries someone named Alice whom I never met. The constant is Annette’s weight.  Annette is home, going to high school. She isn’t much interested in boys.

The other constant is Leroy’s inability to form a stable relationship with a woman. He divorces Alice, finds some woman named Myrtle, marries her. I never meet her either. Leroy liked women. Women liked him. He also liked to drink.

After my grandparents die, Aunt Lois inherits the house.  She has a successful career as a civil servant, with a high-powered job with the Defense Supply Agency.  In the early 1980’s she puts in a nice in-ground pool..  The family reconnects at my Aunt’s, like in the days when we were young children.  My sons get to know my cousins’ sons and daughters. (It’s a rarity these days when second cousins are close.)  The next tragedy is the death from a heart attack of Uncle Jim, in 1985, at age 60.  We get even closer as an extended family.

We see Annette more and more frequently. Her obesity spins off into diabetes.   Around this time, Annette comes out to my then wife and me. I had known gay and lesbian people before this, but never had I known one to come out.  All of a sudden, a distant issue becomes very immediate.

 

Baltimore

15 Monday Aug 2016

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Way back in 2015, we had planned on attending my elder son’s wedding in Philadelphia. We had to back out because my spinal stenosis was just too painful for the trip. Amtrak gave us a voucher for the trip we paid for but did not take. However we had a year to use it. The year was coming to an end, so we booked a trip to Baltimore for this past weekend. We had planned on visiting the National Aquarium at the Inner Harbor and just relaxing.

We left Thursday. Our train was scheduled to depart Richmond at 7:00 PM (1900Hrs). However… Good Old Train #66 from Newport News was stuck behind a disabled freight train on the single track that runs from Williamsburg to Richmond.  Sooo…. CSX, who owns the track and runs the freight traffic has to send a locomotive down the line to pull the disabled freight forward in order that Good Old #66 can complete its mission. Around 9:30 (2130 Hrs) we finally leave Richmond. It’s fairly obvious now that a crimp has been put in our meticulously planned getaway. We climb aboard, choosing the quiet car. I was hoping the conductor in the quiet car wore black tights, white face and white gloves, like a classic French mime, but it wasn’t that quiet. He scans our ticket and off he goes.

We proceed, stopping at all the stops between Richmond and Washington; Ashland, Fredericksburg, Quantico, Woodbridge, Alexandria.  It seems like an eternity. And we have to pull to a siding to let a freight pass (all part of the “fun” of being delayed two and a half hours).  All of you East Coast rail connoisseurs  know that trains  switch power from diesel to electric in Washington for the trip further North, reversed the opposite way. That’s another thirty or so minutes for the switch.   Off we go. It’s now 2:00 AM (0200 Hrs). We’re tired, wondering what we did to piss the travel gremlins off.  We stop in New Carrollton,  Baltimore BWI, and finally Baltimore Penn Station. It is now 3:00 AM (0300 Hrs) and unbelievably hot still.  The easiest piece of the travel epic so far is the speed with which a taxi arrives with a very courteous driver, an African immigrant from, I suspect, somewhere in West Africa.  He promptly takes us to our hotel and we check in around 3:30 AM (0330 Hrs) Friday morning.

Our room is an homage to minimalist decor, and not at all unpleasant in its sparseness. There is no dresser, desk, or superfluous chairs.It does have a nice comfortable king-sized bed, honking big TV, and more electrical outlets than I (or anyone else, for that matter) can possibly use.  The hotel people did their market research. It was set up for people who travel with lap tops, tablets and smart phones. And, more than likely, Hitachi wands, given the outlet placements.

We are thirsty and discover that there are two, yes two, plastic cups in the room for our use. There is minimalist and then there is out right, fuckin’ stingy.  Then I discover the ice maker and drink machine is one flight up.  Fortunately they work.  With ice and sodas, I return. We sip our sodas and soon are trying to fall asleep in a strange room with an incredibly noisy air conditioning system, in a city where, at Four AM, every vehicle operating seems to be an emergency vehicle.   It seems like we are in a corner of Post Modern Hell.

Our first trip to the Inner Harbor is for breakfast. We schlep down in the heat. Thankfully, it is a very short distance. We find a  Cheesecake Factory that looks like the Cheesecake Factory at home with the same menu and the same prices. Nice. I order the Huevos Rancheros and coffee.  The service is slow, not terribly so, and the server is courteous and friendly. The food tastes the same as the one at home.

In case we were afraid that everything would be the same as at home, a few thousand of our closest friends decided to stage the Otakon 16 Convention on this very same weekend. We had all these twenty somethings traipsing about in their favorite anime` character  costumes. Being  old and indifferent, the only character impersonators I could recognize were the Sailor Moon wannabes.  All in all, it was fun to watch. Hallowe’en on steroids.

The Inner Harbor has a shopping mall as part of the attractions. The Inner Harbor is a James Rouse project from the 1980’s, when folks imagined the affluence would never dry up.  Today there are plenty of vacant stores. Given that a shopping mall is a shopping mall is a shopping mall, we got the idea fairly quickly of what was there.

It did not, all of a sudden, get cold in the hour we were at breakfast. The lack of sleep was taking its toll. We went back to the room and slept, in anticipation of our trip to the National Aquarium at 6:30 (1830 Hrs). The sleep came easily. Evidently, people having emergencies sleep during the day. I heard not nary a siren. Mrs CorC? decided that watching a Gray’s Anatomy  rerun would tickle her fancy, so I tried to sleep while all these actors were playing doctor.

Finally we get to the National Aquarium and the experience was well worth the aggravation, inconvenience and pain. The place is brilliant in concept, design and execution.  Realizing one visit won’t do it justice, we are already planning a return.

As a finale, we dine at Phillips Seafood Restaurant. It is definitely a little high end in the chain restaurant spectrum,but the food is well worth it. We had the ceviche`. I had the grilled rockfish, she the crabcake and scallop.

By the time we get back to the hotel, all I want is an ice pack at the fusion site and two naproxen gel caps. As non-cable viewers at home, we take advantage of the cable offerings.  We watch HGTV’s House Hunters, amused at what the house hunters are looking for and what they have to spend. They must choose from condos in St John’s, The Virgin Islands, and they are bloody picky!  I would be tickled to death with indoor plumbing and a refrigerator, but their standards are higher. The shoppers are reminiscent  of characters from a Christopher Guest mocumentary and we can imagine Jane Lynch, John Michael Higgins, and Parker Posey as the prospective buyers.

We sleep through the full complement of sirens and cooling systems . Saturday morning comes and I have resolved to leave Baltimore earlier than our 6:17 PM (1817) departure on train 97, The Silver Meteor, to escape the heat. I may as well sweat at home.  The train switch to Train 195, is simple. This cabbie is also polite and efficient. We are at the station in plenty of time for the train’s arrival.  We discover it is late, but only about a half hour.  We climb aboard, find seats, and sit.   Heat is the culprit in these travel delays. It plays havoc with the equipment. We arrive home a mere hour past the scheduled arrival.

A mini-vacation in 21st Century America is completed.  Recovery from this fun-filled extravaganza takes all of Sunday.